1. Technical Field
The present subject matter relates to home automation networking. It further relates to initialization and setup of networked home automation devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Providing home automation functionality using networking means is well known in the art. Control of lighting and appliances can be accomplished using systems from many different companies such as X10, Insteon® and Echelon. These systems all require some kind of initialization and setup of the devices to communicate properly on the network. In some cases some of the initialization and setup is pre-defined in the device with no mechanism for the user to easily configure the device for their particular installation. But in many cases, a way for the user to configure the device at the time of installation is required.
US Pat. App. No. 2009/0237006 filed Mar. 18, 2008 by inventors Champion et al. shows a method and apparatus for identifying a group of devices where a controller receives a color identifying value over a communication channel from a management network and then combines the light emitted by the at least two LEDs into an identifying color that identifies a group of devices. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,918,690 issues on Apr. 17, 1990, the inventors Markkula et al. describe a network for sensing, communicating and controlling where each cell in the network is assigned a group identification number.
Inventor Dolin describes an apparatus and method for network node identification and network configuration in U.S. Pat. No. 5,519,878 issued on May 21, 1996. In Dolin's system, each device in the home automation network contains a unique ID that is obtained at the time of installation and then placed on a machine readable medium such as a bar code sticker. The bar code stickers for each device are then placed on paper floor plan to show the physical location of that device. The paper floor plan with the stickers is then read by an automatic configuration device to determine the physical location of each device for future use.
However, neither Champion et al., Markkula et al. nor Dolin address the ability of a user to set the network group or other parameters using a control mechanism on the device itself.
In US Pat. App. No. 2009/0267540, inventors Chemel at al. show an intelligent LED lighting system with mesh networking connectivity. Chemel et al. describe a power management module (PMM) with light module identification. Each light module may have identifying information programmed into it, and can communicate that information to the PMM, which can in turn store and communicate that information to a user or installer to aid in replacement or commissioning. The information may be stored in a nonvolatile memory onboard the light module, and communicated via a digital bus to the PMM. The information may be stored passively on the light module, such as via a series of jumpers or dip switches, and can be read by the PMM. The passive storage may include electrical contacts with encoded bit pattern stored in an optics holder. The passive storage may include passive RFID.
X10 markets a series of home automation control modules such as the PLM03 Lamp Module Receiver. Many X10 modules include two rotary control dials that the user can set at installation to allow each separate module to be independently controlled. One dial is for the “House Code” and can be set to a letter ranging from “A” to “P” while the other dial is for the “Unit Number” which can be set to a number ranging from 1 to 16.
It should be noted that neither the system described by Chemel et al. nor X10 devices address simplifying the way that the user can identify the location or other parameters of a device.
It therefore is important to provide a new method for the user to very easily configure a networked device for the home. The method should be very easy to remember and provide a simple means to configure at least the location or other basic parameter important to the networking of the device.